Survey Says: 49% of Americans Don’t Much Like Homosexuality

This exchange between Rod Dreher and Ta-Nehisi Coates on the basis of opposition to same-sex marriage is interesting, if only because it provides another striking example of how ones identity has an incredible impact on how one views the world and other human beings. That is, it’s pretty easy to believe that bigotry drives political action against same-sex marriage when you yourself belong to a minority group that was a regular target of disenfranchisement (or worse) for more than a century. That said, while I see where Dreher is coming from, if Pew has their numbers right, the data is firmly on Ta-Nehisi’s side:

49 percent of Americans believe that homosexuality is “morally wrong,” while only 9 percent view it as morally acceptable. 35 percent say that homosexuality isn’t a moral issue at all, and 7 percent say that it depends (and I’m not sure what that means, at all). Broken down by age, the numbers tell a familiar story: a solid majority of Americans 50 and older view homosexuality as morally wrong (about 53 percent), whereas only 38 percent of the 29 and younger crowd feels similarly. Surprisingly (to me at least) a slight majority – 51 percent – of Americans aged 30-49 view homosexuality as morally wrong. Though if disaggregated, the number of people who disapprove of homosexuality might be greater at the end of the age distribution.

It has become impolite to say so, in either direction, but never doubt many in this country hate and fear gay people.

The corollary to this, of course, is that in a country where a near-majority is morally opposed to homosexuality, it is ridiculous (and almost cruel) to expect gay people to rely exclusively on legislatures as they fight to secure their rights as American citizens. And that’s especially the case when you realize that when legislative efforts are successful, there is almost always an immediate effort to rescind or overturn the legislation. The simple fact is that if current demographic trends hold true, a majority of Americans will eventually support marriage equality. In the meantime though, I think LGBT activist groups should take a page from the Civil Rights Movement and again begin focusing their challenges on the courts. It simply doesn’t make any sense to rely on the generosity of the majority (indeed, if black people did, segregation would have lasted for a whole lot longer).

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Being a gay man who worked hard for marriage equality here in Maine, it is perhaps unsurprising that I would side with Ta-Nehisi on this. It seems wholly unsurprising to us now to look back and say that, as far as race was concerned, the white majority was never going to vote to relieve itself of the privilege’s it enjoyed. The only reason Dreher thinks recourse to a non-electoral solution for advocates of SSM is a reflection on the movement’s legitimacy is that he is comfortable with inequality for gay and lesbian people. For those of us whose lives are, in fact, made materially worse by this vote, the parallels are notable.

I should also note that the person who offered the most profound and meaningful sympathy when, years ago, my partner faced overt job discrimination because of his sexual orientation was a black woman.Report

At this point, focusing on the courts has resulted in State Constitutional bans.

This isn’t just legislative reaction, this is something that courts can’t say “well, it’s unconstitutional” in response to… and I don’t know that there is enough 9th Amendment jurisprudence history in the US Supreme Court for it to hold that marriage is a right of The People rather than, say, 10th Amendment jurisprudence to say that it’s a matter for The States.

There is too much history behind “can’t we, as a society, decide X?” and nowhere near enough “X is none of our business, no, not even as a society.”Report

I find this perplexing. By “X,” w0uld you be including marriage? How would enlarging marriage to include same-sex couples be outside of “society’s” ambit? Isn’t saying “this is none of our business” simply another way of phrasing “we’re going to do nothing”? This is all very well if you’re a member of that part of society who is doing quite well. It’s a rather less desirable attitude if you are not.Report

“We as a society control who can and who cannot marry. You people? Can’t get married.”

This is the downside of deciding that we, as a society, have the right to give or deny marriage to people. If you decide that we, as a society, hold the keys, you have decided that we, as a society, can decide who doesn’t get access behind the door.

By saying that “you two people cannot make this decision on your own, but you need our approval to make it *REAL*”, you have set up the framework whereby gay folks are “you people” in this particular scenario.Report

Jay, you should know as well as anyone that marriage is a social construct. Nobody “decided society holds the keys”. It only exists because of society (or maybe God, but I don’t really buy that given the myriad social arrangements in human history.)

So, nobody “set up” any framework, the framework emerged through interaction. Anyone is free to decide to call their relationship a marriage. That isn’t what this is about. The fight for gay marriage is a fight for social validation as much as for state privileges. It’s a fight to make other people – especially, but not at all exclusively, the state – acknowledge their relationships as equal to anyone else’s.Report

No…but because that’s a different society. And that borders on being a non-sequitur response. (Leaving aside that homosexuality would be even less tolerated there, which would also make said response loaded and hateful in ways it may not be in other circumstances.)

But the thing is, marriage isn’t a right the way freedom of speech is a right, insofar as it must involve more than one person, however defined. It’s more like education, a “positive right” of the sort that, if I recall, you don’t believe in: you don’t have an innate right to one, but it’s usually a prerequsisite for being happy and successful in our society (partly because it’s generally necessary in order to make informed choices about anything), so one group of people shouldn’t be excluded from it. But people still are.

As long as there is such a thing as marriage, people will say “no, you people can’t be married.” This doesn’t make it fair, or right, but it’s how people ARE, and trying to wish society away rather than changing it is unproductive at best.

There is more to being a pacifist than moaning about how much better things would be if this thing people are fighting over didn’t exist.Report

I am trying to think of someone that I might say that to… and the only person coming to mind is that Schiavo guy who claimed marriage to Terri despite having shacked up with another woman and had children by her. I might see saying “he wasn’t really married” to Terri.

If we’ve got two people who say “hey, we’re married!” (to each other, of course), I don’t know upon what grounds I could possibly say “no, you’re not”.

As such, I don’t see where you get the ability to say that.

From there, I don’t see where society would get the ability to say that.

Two people from one of those too-many-vowels islands get marred by chewing on tree bark and turning around three times in front of the male’s parents. It seems silly to say “they aren’t really married if it doesn’t happen within the Baptist Church.”

It’s certainly possible, mind… but I daresay that someone who says such a thing is displaying a fair level of miscalculation when it comes to competent judgment of marriage. I daresay we’d all agree that someone who said such a thing was laughably wrong.

Let’s look at someone saying that “two guys can’t get married”.

I feel the same amount of embarassment on behalf of the speaker of that sentence as I do the previous. He (or she, I suppose) does not have the competence to make that judgment.Report

Ok, so the reason they weren’t married anymore was because: She was brain dead,; He was bonking someone else, didn’t give a shit about Terry and would rather stay in the lime light (He stayed in the game for the fun?); He couldn’t afford the lawyers or figure out the paperwork to get divorced? Why on earth would someone put themselves through such public abuse? The MEG was over and the MES doesn’t really count? I’m surprised.Report

I’d say it’s up to the individuals in question. Two professionals are in a long distance relationship with one working the phones in London while the other maintains their practice in NY. A polygamous family from Pakistan emigrate to Canada. One wife stays in Pakistan to run the family business while the other wife moves with hubby to Toronto to start a new business. A traditional French family (one with a mistress) decide to have children but the wife is barren. The wife is brain dead from an auto accident and the husband refuses to give up on her wishes even though he starts a new family. If in all cases the people involved consider themselves committed for life, who am I to say they aren’t married? What are your criteria for someone to say they’re married. They’re obviously different from what I thought your position was.Report

Of course, we know now that there was very little of Terri during this time. Yet, let’s suppose that she didn’t consent to life support. Since she’s not there does her objection disappear? How about trusts? When you sleep are you still married? How about if you suffered a week long concussion? How bout when you’ve had a few. Explain that one to the Mrs. It’s OK dear, I couldn’t really consent.Report

Maybe he just thought it was fun. It takes all kinds. For me to go through years of legal wrestling, keeping my new relationship in the shadows until death finally came for my previous partner, would involve quite a bit more than a piece of paper.Report

I know that if anything happened to you Mrs. JB would of course throw herself on the pyre. But assuming for some reason she didn’t and you were in Terri’s position would you want Mrs JB to throw in the towel and admit she wasn’t really married anymore?Report

I like the 51 pieces. But drudging back. Can polygamists say they’re married (let’s assume that they are from a place where this is legal, maybe one of your islands with all the vowels). How long does a person have to be unable to consent before the marriage is ended? Does this include a week long bender (might want to ask the Mrs. on this one)? What’s the allowable spatial separation before a marriage ends? I was drunk in Europe?Report

I would consider him an adulterer or maybe just poly. He didn’t marry the other woman until after Terri died and I’ve always had a thing for the whole scarlet letter shtick. I’m not real big on the monogamy thing.Report

I think that they stopped being married to each other and he continued to claim marital privilege despite obvious polygamy. I think that if he had not been shacking up with another woman his claim to marriage would be absolute. Absolutely.

As it was…

I dunno. I see that he stopped being married (as our culture doesn’t really have much of the poly thing going on) when he started raising those children with that other woman whom he impregnated.Report

I am of the opinion, however, that culture is a weak argument to either change something or to keep it the same. “Our culture does it this way and, if you don’t like it, move to Somalia” is an argument I’ve seen given on various topics. It strikes me that if that is a good argument to use against, say, tax law then it’s a good argument to use against, say, marriage law.

Additionally, I’ve seen the argument given that we, as a society, have the right to come to decisions about this, that, and the other. I’m wondering why that argument (a much stronger one, if you ask me) doesn’t apply to this as well.

I say this: (redacted) culture. Leave it up to individuals. The second you outsource your decisions to “culture”, you may find that they, as a society, have decided that you can’t get married and, if you don’t like living in a democracy, you can move to Somalia.Report

This is a simple 14th Amendment police power question. Can a state arbitrarily discriminate against one class of individuals on the basis of some characteristic of that group? The answer in Romer is clearly NO. The beauty of Romer is that the court didn’t even have to go through the fundamental rights/heightened scrutiny analysis to get there.Report

It’s really one of the most frustrating things I’ve ever read. It’s so heavy on Colorado-hates-teh-gays but not so heavy on why Amendment 2 was unconstitutional other than the fact that it was an odious law. Also, Scalia’s dissent if you can get past the implicit homophobia is a treat.

“That is to say, the principle underlying the Court’s opinion is that one who is accorded equal treatment under the laws, but cannot as readily as others obtain preferential treatment under the laws, has been denied equal protection of the laws. If merely stating this alleged “equal protection” violation does not suffice to refute it, our constitutional jurisprudence has achieved terminal silliness.”Report

I’m guessing you may be a lawyer — or, at the least, legalish. So I’ll ask you: I’ve yet to see a persuasive 14th amendment argument for SSM. Here’s my thinking, and perhaps you can help me see where I’m missing the crux of the argument …

Jon and Jane marry. No one asks them if they’re straight, both gay, or planning a mixed-orientation marriage … they just do the blood test, and sign some paperwork. Jon’s gay. Gays can marry. The state isn’t saying that Jon can’t marry — 100s of 1000s of MOMs stand in evidence.

That state, here, is stating that “marriage” means something specifically — and has, for some time. There’s no more discrimination here (this is where I see the 14th Amendment argument failing), than, say, the government delineating between buying and renting a home.

Jon and Jane are in the market for a home. They find one that fits them perfectly. They sign some papers and move in. If they’re paying $1100 a month to Sally, who holds the title, they’re renting … but if they pay $1100 to Bank of America, who holds the title, they’re buying. Regardless of whether you call it buying or renting, 5 years later, Jon and Jane have moved. The experience in large measure is the same. But government treats the two arrangements differently — and so do Jon and Jane (if only subconsciously). Jon and Jane’s rights haven’t been infringed because they don’t get the same perks as buyers. They’re renters, and words have meaning.

Of course, the question of _whether_ there should be differential treatment between renters and buyers is a good one to have — but it shouldn’t ever be construed as a question of 14th amendment rights. Differentiation is an integral part of lawmaking, and as such, can’t be a prima facie argument against a given policy.Report

What you’re saying is sort of the standard conservative jurist position, conservative in an institutional sense. That marriage is defined by the state, which sets the terms of the civil contract and nominally defined as between one woman and one man.

That the courts would see marriage as between two individuals and the differential gender/sex requirements to amount to suspect classification/invidious discrimination based on sexual orientation is anathema to conservatives. As far as I understand it the Pro-SSM legal push is claiming just that.

What’s been frustrating for those groups, however, is that the judiciary really doesn’t know what kind of scrutiny to give discrimination claims/laws based on sexual orientation. The highest is suspect class, which is given to race but not sexual orientation. Sexual orientation is lumped with age and disability in the rational basis (lowest) category. At that level, almost any competent state can cobble together a rational basis for discrimination, which is why states can’t fire police officers because they’re hispanic but they can if they get old.

However, sexual orientation is given suspect classification in CA, CT, MA, VT, IA, and a couple of other states, which is why their state supreme courts are somewhat overrepresented in delivering pro-SSM rulings. In the spate of state constitutional amendments it’s a lot harder for other state Supreme Courts (and now California) to make similar rulings. Incidentally, a lot of people were really confused about Iowa…when really it was a very logical next battleground.

This leaves SCOTUS. SCOTUS which just doesn’t have the votes to push sexual orientation up to suspect classification nor for that matter the desire to.

Nor could SCOTUS deliver a pro-SSM marriage ruling without it. As a matter of vote counting, you could probably find more votes for bumping sexual orientation up to suspect classification than you could for ruling that state constitutional amendments in half the union amount to an invidious and discriminatory denial of due process and don’t pass a rational basis of defining a civil contract.

Shorter, I don’t really see it going anywhere judicially, without a host of new judges and/or legislative initiative at the state level. As for convincing arguments for using the 14th amendment to achieve SSM, I think the ones that don’t rely on suspect classification are fairly shoddy. The ones that do, have a lot that needs to get done before the courts are going to rule in their favor.Report

To clarify, the arguments requiring bumping up sexual orientation to suspect classification are IMHO are fairly persuasive, however, unlike race and religious orientation which were fairly straight-forward, such a change -judicially – would have far more uncertain ramifications.

Essentially, suspect classification and strict scrutiny is reserved for groups that are discrete and insular, share an immutable trait, are politically vulnerable, and have a history of discrimination.Report

This is about right. Certainly it describes the Iowa decision to a “T.” Once the State determines that it is impermissible for private actors to discriminate based on sexual orientation, it becomes very difficult for the State to justify its own discrimination based on sexual orientation.

In other words, the State can’t justify telling private actors that sexual orientation is, in effect, a suspect classification, and then turn around and say that its own use of that same classification is somehow not suspect.

That’s why equal protection analysis applies – once it has been determined that a particular trait is an improper basis for discrimination, ie, that the trait tells us nothing relevant about a person’s character, then the State cannot go ahead and treat that trait as if it were somehow relevant for purposes of the law.Report

I think that it’s possible to think that homosexuality is immoral without being a bigot or even opposing gay marriage. In fact, I happen to think it’s a sin, but (similar to adultery) not one that the government has any business regulating; thus, GLBTs should have all the civil rights of marriage available to heteros.Report

And I think it is possible to not be bigoted against gays but still believe that the traditional American (Western) definition of marriage should not be changed. I respect that homosexual couples can and do have loving, committed, longterm relationships, and for those there are civil unions that provide the same legal benefits. But marriage is not a political prize to be expanded at the behest of one group. It is a solemn bond BETWEEN the sexes (one man and one woman in our country and many others). This is a unique bond because it and only it can (notice I wrote “can” and not “has to”) naturally procreate. I want that natural and unique bond respected for itself. I do not want marriage to be morphed into a legal union that could potentially include not just same sex couples but also other kinds of “unions.” I respect gays, but I do not support any attempt to change the scope and meaning of marriage. That’s not bigotry. That’s principle.Report

The problem, as has been pointed out elsewhere, is that this concept of marriage doesn’t really hold water for most hets. I have no problem letting traditionalists keep the name. However, an institution or legal construct must then must be created for everyone else. It’s unacceptable for the holy rollers to lay claim to an institution and then act as its gate keeper. Keep your institution but quit trying to stop others from creating a secular version.Report

The problem with this is that marriage has already been redefined by heterosexuals with the advent of 99.44% effective birth control.

Marriage was, once upon a time, a covenant between two people who were assumed to be bonded with the purpose of having kids. If two people did not have kids, the assumption was either that one of them was barren or that they had separate bedrooms (for whatever reason). Those were the assumptions. There weren’t no third way.

With the advent of effective birth control, marriage transformed from “the foundation of the family” to “a contract between two people who loved each other”.

Once it became the latter, it wasn’t *THAT* hard to get to the whole “I’m not in love anymore, I’m not happy, I want a divorce” thing rolling. In the 1970’s and 1980’s, this *TOTALLY* came to a head. It went from having one friend who had divorced parents to, like, friggin’ everybody having parents who got divorced.

It seemed like I had more friends with divorced parents than friends without from around 1987 to 1990.

Hell, my generation is the one that engineered the term “starter marriage”. First marriage, no kids, whoops, didn’t work out, get divorced, no harm no foul. Hey, at least they didn’t have kids. I’ve got a handful of friends who had one of those.

If marriage is nothing more than a social contract that two people who are in love and want a life partnership together (and if they have kids, great!), then it’s something that, why the hell not?, gays ought to have access to.

If the argument is that marriage oughtn’t be redefined… well, that’s something that you need to take up with the birth control people.Report

The simple fact is that if current demographic trends hold true, a majority of Americans will eventually support marriage equality.

It depends on what you mean by demographics. Since gay marriage is predominantly a white fetish, I’m assuming you are not speaking of the increasing role of blacks, Asians, and Hispanics. What you are likely saying is if the youth persist in their views and pass their views on to the next generation. We have little reason to believe this will happen. The acceptance of homosexuality has not been a straight line in history. It has ebbed and flowed. We are presently at a peak for sexual libertinism and homosexuality. If history is our guide (rather than Disco Stu), we will move in a more puritanical direction before too long.Report

I agree that acceptance of homosexuality has gone in ebbs and flows, but over a much longer arch of history, not mere generations. We have never before seen a time in the history of the US where gays could mostly lead open and honest lives. In doing so, we show straight people that we’re pretty much just normal people just like them. Never before has the straight majority been able to count so many gay people as trusted and beloved friends, relatives, neighbors and co-workers. Maybe we won’t make it to full marriage equality, but never again will we be able to go back to the time when gays were universally demonized, and had absolutely no rights.

Also, with regard to marriage equality being a “white fetish” I would suggest you check out the latest battleground in Washington, DC. The leader of the pro-gay marriage group is a black man, as is the leader of our local chapter of the gay democratic group. I would urge you to watch footage from the marriage hearings before the DC council the past few weeks, where a very diverse crowd (I’d say majority non-white) testified on behalf of marriage equality.Report

I wish that I had gotten my act together and could have voted in my state’s “Everything But Marriage” law, but I am on vacation at the moment and in a different state. I want gays to be allowed to marry (and not just “Everything But”).

That being said, I am still not comfortable with it coming through the courts. The best response to the 49% number is to try to bring it down and n0t to ignore it. The more than public opinion is circumvented, the more backlash you are likely to see. In the last couple election cycles alone, we’ve made great strides. The issue has gone from toxic to close. I think that if we do this the right way, it’s one of those things that will become considerably uncontroversial very quickly. With court rulings we may get what we want, but it’ll come at a cost.

(I say “we” as in supporters of gay marriage equality. I am not myself homosexual, but fall in the 9% that find it morally acceptable)Report

What is the difference between saying that something is morally permissible and that something is not a moral issue? i.e. if there are no moral reasons for or against X, then X is morally permissible.Report

If you believe that homosexuality vs. heterosexuality is merely an issue of snails vs. oysters, then it’s a matter of taste.

If, however, you believe that sex between two people who love each other very much in a lifepartnership situation is a positive good in and of itself, it’s a moral issue (and morally acceptable).

There. That was my best shot.

I’m afraid that your best shot isn’t quite on target — it reduces marriage to a question of sexual practice, and nothing more. As has been mentioned earlier in these comments, our present-day marriages affect legal matters including our taxes, whom we can visit in the hospital, & etc.

One’s opinion of the moral value of sex between adults in a committed life partnership has no bearing upon the legal status of said relationship, nor should it. I’m sure a clear majority of people would say they consider adultery to be immoral — but adultery is not illegal. That may not be exactly apples to apples, but my point is that the legal structure of our society is made of far more than just morality by consensus.Report

At least in the context of same-sex marriage, I would say that there is not a difference, in the sense that it’s not an either/or proposition. Whether or not (and to whom) it is morally permissible is overridden by its not being a moral issue. It is a legal issue, a societal issue, a question of equal protection.

Jay, after I posted my previous comment I realized that my disagreement is not really with your answer to this question but the question itself, and by extension a criticism of the Pew poll’s relevance. If I had it to do over, I would have made that distinction instead of directly criticizing your comment. So, uh… anyway.Report

Not crickets – shower droplets. I was getting dressed and ready to leave, which I must do in a minute.

I’m not sure to what extent you’ll be satisfied by my addressing of the question in my last reply. I wasn’t attempting to derail the conversation; I thought that my affinity for (and interpretation of) the “not a moral issue” position might address some of the head-scratching over what it meant.

I’m not entirely moved off of my contention that adultery is not illegal by the fact of Sinatra’s arrest more than 70 years ago, amusing story though it is. Given the puritanical-sounding original charge of “seduction,” at the time apparently even the adultery rap was considered a persnickety provincial statute.

I have questions about a couple of your other points, but they’ll have to wait till later on.Report

Nah, I was being a bit unfair, though admittedly dying to use that mugshot for something.

*shrug*

I mean I think it’s a lot simpler to say get your morals out of my laws than to actually do that. In general, I’m a bit bothered by the ahistoricism of the approach. More specific to gay marriage, I think amoral arguments (as opposed to moral/immoral) just aren’t terribly effective.Report

Kyle, I ask below for clarification on a handful of terms you used in earlier comments — not in order to be nitpicky, but because I’d be genuinely interested to read your response. However, given that there are only so many hours in a day you may well not care to address each and every one. If so, it’s cool — no worries.

One’s opinion of the moral value of sex between adults in a committed life partnership has no bearing upon the legal status of said relationship, nor should it.

First, that’s normative.

Second, as a positive claim, it’s not that accurate.

I don’t quite follow. Are you saying my statement is normative or positive? In my (admittedly limited) understanding of rhetoric/argumentation “normative” essentially means subjective, and “positive,” objective; if this is the case, then surely my statement can’t be both. So which is it, and how does this diminish my point?

I think it’s a lot simpler to say get your morals out of my laws than to actually do that.

True, very true.

In general, I’m a bit bothered by the ahistoricism of the approach. More specific to gay marriage, I think amoral arguments (as opposed to moral/immoral) just aren’t terribly effective.

I don’t mean to suggest that the amoral argument by itself is sufficient for the purpose of effecting social change. I do think that there is a place for it, though. Out in the morass of our national miscourse™ it’s common to hear indignant declarations that SSM is homosexuals demanding “special treatment” (usually followed by fallacious slippery-slope predictions that the next group to demand legal recognition for their marriages will be polygamists or bestiality practitioners, etc). What we’re generally calling the “amoral” approach is thereby useful to point out that, in fact, SSM advocates are striving only for equal treatment for same-sex couples.Report

One’s opinion of the moral value of sex between adults in a committed life partnership has no bearing upon the legal status of said relationship, nor should it.

I was asserting my belief that this is a normative statement. What I cut from my comment but should’ve left in was to ask you why you think this should be the case as opposed to leaving it as self-evidently good.

My second comment was meant to address the potential counter-argument that you weren’t making a normative claim. However, looking back on it – my first interpretation was that you were saying more than you were. I read it as saying there was no relationship between legally defined relationships and external opinions of the moral value of sex between adults (even in committed relationships), which is broader than your assertion. So apologies there.

I’m going to split the difference with you on the slippery slope predictions, depending upon how SSM becomes legalized it actually can seriously weaken the grounds upon which we continue to criminalize polygamy and bigamy. Which isn’t a reason by itself to oppose gay marriage, but it’s certainly a reason not to write off the concern as crazy talk.

To go a little bit OT and explore this amoral business some more. I don’t think liberals in general but SSM advocates in particular should be so quick to cede the language of morality in today’s Schwulekulturkampf (should I trademark this?).

In politics, it’s rare to win subjective battles with objective arguments. In a battle between “make gays equal” and “deus velt…for the children,” there’s a very clear winner. So is there a place for it? Probably. To me though, I think it’s a line of argument that only looks appealing if you already agree with the message. However, if there’s a lesson from the civil rights movements of the 50’s and 60’s it’s that equality was a moral argument, not a way around it.Report

“it’s pretty easy to believe that bigotry drives political action against same-sex marriage when you yourself belong to a minority group that was a regular target of disenfranchisement (or worse) for more than a century. ”

Maybe. But if true, would this not lead us to believe that African-Americans would be far more open to the idea that “bigotry drives political action against same-sex marriage”?

But most things I have read indicate that African-Americans are actually more likely than the general population to oppose same-sex marriage.

“In the meantime though, I think LGBT activist groups should take a page from the Civil Rights Movement and again begin focusing their challenges on the courts. It simply doesn’t make any sense to rely on the generosity of the majority (indeed, if black people did, segregation would have lasted for a whole lot longer).”

LGBT activist groups have focused on challenges to the courts and well considering how Prop 8 turned out, that wasn’t exactly a winning strategy. In fact, it made it actively harder to legalize gay marriage through normal legislative channels. Which isn’t to blame it on the activists but to recognize that the ability to amend state constitutions to overturn judicial decisions is a counterattack that opponents of civil rights didn’t exactly have.

Also, when it comes to landmark Civil Rights court cases, they were instrumental in galvanizing support and moving things in the right direction but it took decades and often Congressional action to actually make significant progress (see school desegregation and Brown).

I think the judicial strategy is likely to result in majoritarian backlashes, fleeting and incomplete victories, and the creation of a new litmus test for judges that could make the courts another cultural battleground.

If LGBT activists were as tactical, measured, and patient as the coalitions who sought to advance civil rights through the courts, I might agree. However, I doubt that they are. I doubt the nation will stand for it. I doubt opponents today will be caught off-guard and as under prepared as opponents of civil rights litigation.Report

Kyle, what is the referent of “it” that you “doubt the nation will stand for”? I think you mean the pro-LGBT rights/SSM coalition (of which I am a member) trying to advance their cause by leading primarily with the courts (note that in many cases, e.g. Maine, the lead is with legislatures, not courts) versus winning referenda – correct?

If I read you correctly, a) any particular comparison with some other leading-with-the-courts group/coalition that you’d care to offer as an example of the nation not standing for the court-leading strategy? I anticipate you bringing up abortion; proleptically I counter-offer the environmental movement (or for that matter, the church state disentanglement “movement”, which began with those damnably :} litigious and un-American Jehovah’s Witnesses and the like).

b) what form do you expect the backlash to take? You mention litmus tests. I can see that happening – abortion again being the obvious precedent (cue standard if overblown comparison to abortion legalization process in the rest of the developed world).

BTW, I agree with what I think you are saying about SSM specifically and substantive LGBT equality being likely to be a very live and divisive issue for at least a couple of generations.

semi-OT, but I have no idea what you mean by opponents of civil rights litigation being “caught off-guard and under prepared”. I admit, the only two cases whose history I know at all well are Mendez and Brown, but (especially in Mendez) I don’t see what as a legal strategy the racists were supposed to have followed. No snark intended – if you had been legal advisor to the white citizens’ council or Buckley or Faubus or whomever, what would you have advised them to do? (note well, I’m not suggesting you retrospectively favor their positions; I can retrospectively tell the Kaiser how to win WW1 while being glad he didn’t). Please forgive and correct my ignorance if the answer is widely known – my stomach for reading the League of South, ISI, Claremont Institute etc. where I might be expected to find the answer is limited.Report

ACK! Unclear antecedent alert. I doubt the nation would stand for gay marriage imposed via judicial fiat. I think there would be a decently sized mushy center of people who don’t really care all that much who would be incensed at being told what to do/accept.

I find Maine disappointing because a.) I’m not a fan of referenda in general and b.) it did lead with the legislature and I fear what happened will have a deterrent effect in other states.

A.) Abortion is the obvious example and I think the most analogous because in a lot of ways it’s an issue that strikes many of the same chords on culture, community, personal choice, and religious values in this country.

I would challenge how analogous the environmental movement is because it does retain a fair amount of power in terms of state/federal legislation passed and federal regulatory power. It could just be me but I don’t think of judicial leadership in environmentalism.

I think it’s less apt but school desegregation, which was an issue of judicial leadership for over a decade. Resistance to Brown was an issue addressed by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and not for nothing.

B.) I would prefer judges that aren’t asked about how they’ll rule on gay marriage, first of all. Second, I think the shocking success of referenda and state constitutional amendment drives to keep “opposite marriage” the only type of marriage, raises the bar. Trench warfare and fear of the slippery slope on gay marriage might make people less likely to pass other laws granting rights.

I just think there are two important things to remember, time is definitely on the side of pro-SSM forces in a way that is quicker and more obvious than it was with either women or african-americans. Second, I think it means more for a majority to recognize and legislate affirmatively for gay marriage than to have the courts rub it in the faces of a slight or sizeable majority of people, depending on your state.Report

If you read the hardcore anti-environmental writings, they do perceive the environmental movement as a profoundly antidemocratic litigation/adminstrative agency ratchet (in their mind taking laws like the Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act, etc. far beyond their “original intent”, just as e.g. incorporation via the due process clause violates “original intent”).

How about the second example – atheists are still as hated as ever (though certainly more in the larger society’s face overall), but though the ratchet is getting stickier I would argue that the overall trend of church state litigation over the last say twenty years is still slightly in the secularists’ favor. Do you disagree? Do you think taking a “public acceptance before litigation” strategy would have been more successful?

BTW, I agree that the demographic/political trends over the next generation or so _probably_ favor full legal equality for LGBTs, but I’m far from certain how long the trend will persist – thinking teh ghey is teh ick to a criminalizable degree is, while far from as universal as the right would like to think, dishearteningly common in the anthropological literature (i.e. independent of the specific strand in the Abrahamic religions and their respective civilizations). I have reasonable hope that the pendulum will swing far enough before reversing that “our” gains can be locked in enough to provide hysteresis against the reaction, but I’m far from sure.

BTW, yes, I know that my anthropological argument could be used to support a probabilistic argument for a return to women as property, but:

1) The societal restructuring caused by technological development IMHO puts a stronger ratchet under women’s emancipation than it does under LGBT equality; and 2) I _think_, but can’t really defend due to not enough factual (e.g. neurological extended phenotype) basis, that the deep seated sources of “teh ghey is teh ick” are _less_ amenable to suppressed by “polite society” pressures (as compared to e.g. overt racism).Report

In terms of the, “public acceptance before litigation,” strategy, I think you can find analogues and contrasts but the more different they are the less useful. In this case, hardcore anti-environmentalists don’t have the same clout and organization as do anti-abortionists and anti-SSM advocates.

With atheists, I would say litigation has helped push the culture along but by the same token that stems from consensus respect for the 1st amendment (in general) and a different body of jurisprudence than the pro-SSM route which runs through an area of ongoing (not settled) cultural debate about the limits of toleration and respect and the far murkier waters of the 14th amendment jurisprudence.

“2) I _think_, but can’t really defend due to not enough factual (e.g. neurological extended phenotype) basis, that the deep seated sources of “teh ghey is teh ick” are _less_ amenable to suppressed by “polite society” pressures (as compared to e.g. overt racism).”

I would agree with this, I also think that’s why the approaches should be radically different. I don’t think you can understand racism and counter it. In the way that you can understand were some strands of homophobia/bias stem from and work to counter them.

Put another way, there’s enough evidence to say that generations of people knowing out gays who are friends, family members, and co-workers, is a big reason why acceptance is trending upwards. I don’t think generations of knowing more black people, however, has had the same effect.Report

On the OT question, you know it’s less that there should’ve been or was an obvious racist legal strategy, it’s just that in pursuing civil rights litigation not just for african-americans but for women, unmarried couples, etc…

The NAACP and the ACLU were very smart about it. They built up precedents, they had institutional allies, they were selective in which cases they brought and when. There simply was no coherent conservative legal movement until these successes created one as a response.

Now there is. I think it’s entirely unclear that you could replicate the successful litigation that essentially created our legal framework for looking at issues of discrimination, sexual rights, and privacy rights – among others – in today’s legal environment.

So I could give it a thought, but my comment has less to do with specific strategy than a completely different operational environment.Report

OK. That the operational environment now is quite different I agree. I (mis-)triggered on the “off-guard and under prepared”. The racists had plenty of time to prepare – e.g. the move of the modal Democrat to the pro-civil rights position was written on the wall by 1948; I suppose a Really Smart Person might have been able to predict the Southern Strategy in 1948 as well based on the Democrat’s motion and Duverger’s Law.Report

I must say that I’m hesitant to wade into this discussion. First, I’m a newcomer to the blog, so I have no capital here; I’m just another handsome avatar. Second, I’ve discovered — time and again — that my opinion is unpopular. At some level, I’d like to think, it’s unpopular because I don’t have the time, space, or rhetorical tools to do it justice. But mostly it’s unpopular because it seems, for all it’s worth, to be the opinion of an Uncle Tom.

But that’s never stopped me before.

I’m a gay man — out and well-adjusted — who doesn’t support gay marriage. Had I lived in California, I would have voted YES on 8 … and had I lived in Washington, I would have been on the “wrong” side of their recent initiative as well. Maine is a little different, by virtue of the strange ballot language and the complex history of the issue, there — neither of which I have my head wrapped around.

I’m not a lawyer, so I can’t pretend to understand 200+ years of precedent — but my reading of the US Constitution doesn’t really leave much room to quibble on the issue. Any man and woman — regardless of their orientation, religion, race, or pretty much anything besides age and their not being cousins — can marry in this country. That’s what marriage is. Defining marriage thusly is no more discrimination than defining renting and buy a home as two separate affairs — even though they look the same on paper. With that perspective in mind, I can’t help but believe that ramming the issue through the courts — expecting/demanding that the courts invent something out of whole cloth — is anything but an affront to the rule of law.

Moreover, acceptance by fiat doesn’t work. Change takes time … a LOT of time. And impatience is not an excuse for petulance.Report

Mmhmm, well that’s fine. So far you’re similar to the right in that you have a strong negative position regarding SSM. You also are like the right in that your commentary is bereft of any positive position about homosexuals.

So that is to say: If not SSM then what?

To this the position of the right is “Nothing. Now please disappear back into your closets.” Clearly slightly less than half the populace doesn’t agree with that position and it’s the growing half of the population too.

I’m not entirely sure what you mean when you say that my “commentary is bereft of any positive position about homosexuals”. I absolutely adore myself … and I’m gay. I’ll likely have a better response when I understand the concern better.Report

No problem, I will try and elaborate. In these terms a negative positon would be one that negates my position. For instance there is a hole in the road. I say “lets lay a board over the hole.” You say “No laying a board over the hole is a bad idea.” You have a negative position towards the board laying idea in that you are opposed to it. If instead you said “No, lets fill the hole in with gravel.” You have a positive position in that rather than merely negating a proposed solution to the problem you are also proposing an alternative to the solution you disagree with.

Yes, it does … my position lacked an affirmative response. Mostly because an affirmative response would have drug me deeper into the discussion that I was ready to wade. That said, I gave the bones of an affirmative response to Kyle, below.

… I don’t support gay marriage. I would support civil unions (with some caveats).

… I also have grave concerns over how this battle is unfolding. In our rush to carve out a PR coup for ourselves, we are leaving other families in the lurch. There are plenty of ways we could address the hardships that same-sex couples — and, in particular, same-sex parents — that would ALSO address the needs of families, generally.

Here’s an example of my thinking: partner health benefits. In America, today — much to my thorough disappointment — health benefits flow from the workplace: I work, I have employee insurance, my spouse is covered (most of the time). So what do we do? We fight for same-sex partner benefits (for direct redress) or same-sex marriage (as an indirect approach). But what if we simply stepped back from the problem, took off our lapel pins, and asked how we could really help ALL families … I’d say we extend the employee’s benefits to cover all members of the household (we’d have to define that a bit, of course). What would that do? It’d certainly cover same-sex partners, common law spouses, adult children living at home — it would even incentivize dad to bring his aged mother home from the nursing home. Suddenly, we have multi-generational households again. Now THAT’S something to crow about.Report

I actually feel the fight for gay marriage distracts time and energy from less emotionally resonant issues for something that is probably more symbolically powerful than instrumentally important.

For example, sure marriage is great, but employment discrimination, developing support networks for gay teens, public health initiatives etc… are all – in my book – more substantively important. Put another way, I doubt allowing two women to register at Pottery Barn is the most effective way to put a sizeable dent in the considerably high rate of not-straight teen suicide.

So, on that, I think we agree. If not on the value of gay marriage itself.Report

@Sam: the laws, of course, would be crafted in a way to exact costs for the benefit rendered. In other words, you and your beer buddies would be forced to consider whether the benefit of being a “household” outweighed the costs. The secret, of course, would be crafting a cost schedule that encouraged the behavior @Cascadian suggests, namely: “encouraging people to take care of each other rather than relying on welfare” — while knitting the members of said household together in a way to prevent associations of convenience.Report

“I’d say we extend the employee’s benefits to cover all members of the household (we’d have to define that a bit, of course). What would that do?”

I’ll tell you what it would have done for me: A few years back, I was living with a few buddies in a beer-can-strewn hovel in Baltimore. At least one of us was always unemployed. Sometimes two. Only the ones working had insurance.

We talked a lot about what would happen if companies would pay for “partner” benefits the same way they paid for spousal benefits. We wondered if we would have “played gay.” It was just a discussion. And I am sure we would have never done that. Or… I hope not. But we were young and stupid, so you never know.

What I am getting at is that the notion of “defining” a household or a family gets really, really complicated once you start meddling with the definition. Should a live-in girlfriend count? What if she has been a live-in girlfriend for the past 18 years and she has three kids with you? Why would we have laws that do not give insurance to her, but laws that do require a company to give insurance to some guy’s fourth wife in five years?

And come to think of it… why NOT a drinking buddy? I lived with mine for many years. We had what you might consider a committed relationship. when they were out of work, my paycheck kept them off welfare. They did the same for me.

Some people choose to have a conventional life with a wife and 2.4 kids. Some people choose not to. So once you start saying, OK, this counts, this we will support and subsidize, pretty soon other people come calling.

This is neither an argument for or against gay marriage. But a reminder that crap can get pretty complicated pretty fast. Because jerk-ass people like me and my friends will be pretty happy to game the system, for what’s theirs. Or will at least consider doing so if you make it worth their while.Report

You’re beer buddies are a great example. If we conceive of the government as encouraging people to take care of each other rather than relying on welfare instead of trying to recreate some fictional account of the fifties, heck yeah. You should have been given a deduction and support for helping your clan. You gave them support both emotionally and financially. Supposedly, you helped them on their journey and you kept them off of welfare. All good.Report

Hmm well far as I’m aware there actually isn’t much to any statute or government law the makes corporate health benefits accrue to married partners right now. Most companies, my own as well, extend health benefits to spouses (and in many cases to their great credit to same sex spouses) of their own volition. So would this proposal not represent a significant new government involvement into corporate health benefits?

Of course I suppose this particular issue may be moot as the current administration is coming remarkably close to instituting quite an overhaul to the current system anyhow.Report

Yes! Welcome to new and interesting opinions given by new and interesting people!

This post does do a good job of reminding me that whatever my opinion of this topic is… it’s not exactly *MY* fight. I think that any two people should be allowed to hammer out stuff for themselves, of course… but given that that isn’t an option, how much of this is *MY* fight one way or the other?Report

This is absolutely your fight. To borrow a phrase from one of my favorite TV shows, we “live together or die alone”. The family is an integral part of the fabric of society — and, as such, demands our vigilant care. Regardless of where you stand on the issue of gay marriage, ambivalence isn’t really an option. And while I don’t think you meant it this way, Jaybird, too many of our compatriots bow out of important discussions with that phrase — that it’s not “their fight” — only to get back to their XBOX sooner.

And what’s worse: opinion makers see this sentiment and play it up … mocking opponents of SSM in comedy skits where they ask us if our marriages are any worse the wear because Adam and Steve have gotten hitched.

Well, I take some comfort in the thought that my preferred solution isn’t terribly paternalistic in the whole “I know what’s best for (group)” sense. Let those inclined to get married get married, let those inclined to union civilly do that, let those inclined to live in sin do that, and let those inclined to complain about the other people do that. Let not the gummint get involved as marriage is a First Amendment issue and various religions can do more or less whatever they want so long as tax law is prepared to deal with the consequences and everything else is nobody’s business.

But I don’t like the whole “(members of group) should X!” thing that sometimes shows up.

(Members of group) are individuals, first and foremost. To treat them as (members of group) rather than individuals is to do them a disservice.

I support gay marriage not because I’m gay but because I don’t think that people should have the ability to deny marriage to two people who want to get married.

Far too often, I encounter arguments that say “well, we as a society ought to be able to deny marriage to this group, that group, and this other group… but we should totally start granting marriage to THIS GROUP HERE!!!”

And then, when it goes up to a vote, we hear how we, as a society, are bigots because we, as a society, didn’t want to change things from how they were yesterday.

Not being petulant hardly explains the theoretical votes against. Technically Dread Scott is correct and the Fourteenth is a scam. I can buy, “I want no part of this marriage stuff”. I can also buy leave marriage to the traditionalists but give me or my brothers “everything but”. That’s as far as I can see.Report

Jamelle I’m going to have to say that I’m with Kyle on this one. It’s a great post and good analysis but the prescription is ill advised IMHO. The courts are a weak branch of government to try and hang SSM off of. We’ve already seen the extent of their inability to bring about SSM and speaking personally I don’t think it would be a good idea to get it that way anyhow even if they had the power to grant it.

Politically I believe that the SSM debate in this country has actually been progressing very well. Compared to racial civil rights the rights of gay people have moved with wildfire speed. The fact that homosexuality cuts across racial lines and that almost everyone is (increasingly) in close contact with gay people is probably a strong factor in the speed of the progress. The courts have done a wonderful task getting the ball rolling but I think that the cause as “grown” beyond them and that excessive fixation on the courts would set us back badly. The battle has moved into the legislatures and gays have done well robbing their opponents of one of their best sound bites by achieving gay rights legislatively as well as judicially. We now are enjoying the spectacle of seeing the right who only a few short years ago were singing the praises of the principled constitutional legislatures that were being short-circuited by the courts now scrambling to assemble populist mobs to overturn legislative decisions. There’s a lot of narrative power in that.

Long term of course the best way to win SSM is also the most natural. Gays merely need to stop hiding and be politely unapologetic about their orientation and existence. Rafts of studies have shown that knowing a gay person personally produces an enormous plunge in anti-gay attitudes.

Politically the ground is pretty fertile too. Don’t ask don’t tell is being blatantly measured for the butchers block as we speak. As soon as that obnoxious anachronism gets the axe then gay patriots and service members will be able to add their voices to the discussion without fear. I don’t think Americans will fancy telling their own veterans that there is no civil option for marrying the person they love. As soon as California gets their act together the odds are excellent that there will be a reversal of that states position. New York is ready to enact SSM legislatively, it’s more gummed up by the intricacies of New York state politics than it is by powerful opposition in the legislature.

This isn’t to short change the anguish that gay people suffer under the current affairs. As a person who recently married my husband in Canada I’m keenly aware of it. But as long as we keep pushing the way we’re going it’s not a question of if SSM will happen but when. Even the right wingers generally admit it.Report

I agree. Not about carrots; I love carrots. But about the poll: what does “not a moral issue” mean? I don’t think that homosexuality is a moral issue, per se — but that doesn’t mean that I think homosexuals and homosexual issues necessarily fall outside the reach of discussions surrounding morality.Report

Put another way: I can (and do) believe that homosexuality isn’t a moral issue, yet object to same-sex marriage on moral grounds — on grounds which grow organically from a position that there are ways in which humans ought to comport themselves.Report

*Sigh*. Then why not rewrite the original Declaration of Human Rights to fit the actual views of the public: “We The People believe that all men (except Negroes, Sodomites, Musulmans, Jews, Catholicks, Atheists, Mexicans and any Foreigners we may come to dislike in the future)…” [SARCASM]Report

You say the gay rights movement should go back to the courts, and stop trying to win this at the ballot box. What you’re overlooking is that, to date, EVERY SINGLE BALLOT BOX FIGHT was brought by the religious right. Gay rights advocates have never, to my knowledge (yet at least) brought a single vote to the people. We’ve instead been forced to fight there by our opponents every time. So I don’t think it’s up to us whether or not this gets fought in front of voters. Am I wrong?Report

Religious Institutions. Religious institutions may resume services subject to the following conditions, which apply to churches, synagogues, temples, mosques, interfaith centers, and any other space, including rented space, where religious or faith gatherings are held: 1. Indoor religious gatherings are limited to no more than ten people. 2. Outdoor religious gatherings of up to 250 people are allowed. Outdoor services may be held on any outdoor space the religious institution owns, rents, or reserves for use. 3. All attendees at either indoor or outdoor services must maintain appropriate social distancing of six feet and wear face masks or facial coverings at all times. 4. There shall be no consumption of food or beverage of any kind before, during, or after religious services, including food or beverage that would typically be consumed as part of a religious service. 5. Collection plates or receptacles may not be passed to or between attendees. 6. There should be no hand shaking or other physical contact between congregants before, during, or after religious services. Attendees shall not congregate with other attendees on the property where religious services are being held before or after services. Family members or those who live in the same household or who attend a service together in the same vehicle may be closer than six feet apart but shall remain at least six feet apart from any other persons or family groups. 7. Singing is permitted, but not recommended. If singing takes place, only the choir or religious leaders may sing. Any person singing without a mask or facial covering must maintain a 12-foot distance from other persons, including religious leaders, other singers, or the congregation. 8. Outdoor or drive-in services may be conducted with attendees remaining in their vehicles. If utilizing parking lots for either holding for religious services or for parking for services held elsewhere on the premises, religious institutions shall ensure there is adequate parking available. 9. All high touch areas, (including benches, chairs, etc.) must be cleaned and decontaminated after every service. 10. Religious institutions are encouraged to follow the guidelines issued by Governor Hogan.

“There shall be no consumption of food or beverage of any kind before, during, or after religious services, including food or beverage that would typically be consumed as part of a religious service,” the order says in a section delineating norms and restrictions on religious services.

The consumption of the consecrated species at Mass, at least by the celebrant, is an integral part of the Eucharistic rite. Rules prohibiting even the celebrating priest from receiving the Eucharist would ban the licit celebration of Mass by any priest.

CNA asked the Howard County public affairs office to comment on how the rule aligns with First Amendment religious freedom and free exercise rights.

Howard County spokesman Scott Peterson told CNA in a statement that "Howard County has not fully implemented Phase 1 of Reopening. We continue to do an incremental rollout based on health and safety guidelines, analysis of data and metrics specific to Howard County and in consultation with our local Health Department."

"With this said," Peterson added, "we continue to get stakeholder feedback in order to fully reopen to Phase 1."

The executive order also limits attendance at indoor worship spaces to 10 people or fewer, limits outdoor services to 250 socially-distanced people wearing masks, forbids the passing of collection plates, and bans handshakes and physical contact between worshippers.

In contrast to the 10-person limit for churches, establishments listed in the order that do not host religious services are permitted to operate at 50% capacity.

In the early days of the Coronavirus epidemic, there were hopes that the disease could be treated with a compound called hydroxychloroquine (HCQ). HCQ is a long-established inexpensive medicine that is widely used to treat malaria. It also has uses for treating rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. There had been some indications that HCQ could treat SARS virus infections by attacking the spike proteins that coronaviruses use to latch onto cells and inject their genetic material. Initial small-scale studies of the drug on COVID-19 patients indicated some positive effect (in combination with the antibiotic azithromycin). President Trump, in March, promoted HCQ as a game-changer and is apparently taking it as a prophylaxis after potentially being exposed by White House staff.

Initial claims of the efficacy of this therapy were a perfect illustration of why we base decisions on scientific studies and not anecdotes. By late March, Twitter was filled with stories of "my cousin's mother's former roommate was on death's door and took this therapy and miraculously recovered". But such stories, even assuming they are true, mean nothing. With COVID-19, we know that seriously ill people reach an inflection point where they either recover or die. If they died while taking the HCQ regimen, we don't hear from them because...they died. And if they recover without taking it, we don't hear from them because...they didn't take it. Our simian brains have evolved to think that correlation is causation. But it isn't. If I sacrificed a goat in every COVID-19 patient's room, some of them would recover just by chance. That doesn't mean we should start a massive holocaust of caprines.

However, even putting aside anecdotes, there were good reasons to believe the HCQ regimen might work. And given the seriousness of this disease and the desperation of those trying to save lives, it's understandable that doctors began using it for critically ill patients and scientists began researching its efficacy.

Why Trump became fixated on it is equally understandable. Trump has been looking for a quick fix to this crisis since Day One. Denial failed. Closing off (some) travel to China failed. A vaccine is months if not years away. So HCQ offered him what he wanted -- a way to fix this problem without the hard work, tough choices and sacrifice of stay-at-home orders, masks, isolation and quarantine. So eager were they to adopt the quick fix, the Administration made plans to distribute millions of doses of this unproven drug in lieu of taking more concrete steps to address the crisis.[efn_note]Although the claim that Trump stands to profit off HCQ sales does not appear to hold much water.[/efn_note]

This is also why certain fringe corners of the internet became fixated on it. There has arisen a subset of the COVID Truthers that I'm calling HCQ Truthers: people who believe that HCQ isn't just something that may save some lives but is, in fact, a miracle cure that it's only being held back so that...well, take your pick. So that Democrats can wreck the economy. So that Bill Gates can inject us with tracking devices. So that we can clear off the Social Security rolls. And this isn't just a US phenomenon nor is it all about Trump. Overseas friends tell me that COVID trutherism in general and HCQ trutherism in particular have arisen all over the Western World.

It's no accident that the HCQ Truthers seem to share a great deal of headspace with the anti-Vaxxers. It fills the same needs

In both cases, the idea was started by flawed studies. The initial studies out of China and France that indicated HCQ worked were heavily criticized for methodological errors (although note that neither claimed it was a miracle cure). Since then, larger studies have shown no effect.

HCQ trutherism offers an explanation for tragedy beyond the random cruelty of nature. Just as anti-vaxxers don't want to believe that sometimes autism just happens, HCQ Truthers don't want to believe that sometimes nature just releases awful epidemics on us. It's more comforting, in some ways, to think that bad happenings are all part of a plan by shadowy forces.

There is, however, another crazy side that doesn't get as much attention because their crazy is a bit more subtle. These are the people who have decided that, since Trump is touting the HCQ treatment, it must not work. It can not work. It can not be allowed to work. There is an undisguised glee when studies show that HCQ does not work and a willingness to blame HCQ shortages on Trump and only Trump.[efn_note]Not to mention the odd fish tank cleaner poisoning that has nothing to do with him.[/efn_note]

In between the two camps are everyone else: scientists, doctors and ordinary folk who just want to know whether this thing works or not, politics and conspiracy theories be damned. Well, last week, we got a big indication that it does not. A massive study out of the Lancet concluded that the HCQ regimen has no measurable positive effect. In fact, death rates were higher for those who took the regimen, likely due to heart arrhythmias induced by the drug.

So is the debate over? Can we move on from HCQ? Not quite.

First of all, the study is a retrospective study, looking backward at nearly 100,000 cases over the last four months. That's a massive sample that allows one to correct for potential confounding factors. But it's not a double-blind trial, so there may be certain biases that can not be avoided. In response to the publication, a group doing a controlled study unblinded some of their data (that is, they let an independent group look up who was getting the actual HCQ and who was getting a placebo). It did not show enough of a safety concern to warrant ending the study.

It's also worth noting that because this is an unproven therapy, it is usually being used on only the sickest patients (the odd President of the United States aside). It's possible earlier use of the drug, when the body is not already at war with itself, could help.

With those caveats in mind, however, this study at least makes it clear that HCQ is not the miracle cure some fringe corners of the internet are pretending it is. And it should make doctors hesitant in giving to people who already have heart issues.

As you can imagine, this has only fed the twin camps of derangement. The truther arguments tend to fall into the usual holes that truther theories do:

"How can this be a four-month study when we only learned about COVID in January!" The HCQ protocol started being used almost immediately because of previous research on coronaviruses.

"How come all of the sudden this safe medicine that people use all the time is dangerous?!" The side effects of HCQ have been well known for years and have always required consideration and management. They may be showing up more strongly here because it is being given to patients whose bodies are already under extreme stress. Also, azithromycin may amplify some of those side effects.

"They just hate Trump." Not everything is about Donald Trump. If it turned out that kissing Donald Trump's giant orange backside cured COVID, scientists would be the first ones telling people to line up and use chapstick.

The other camp's response has ranged from undisguised glee -- that is, joy at the idea that we won't be saving lives cheaply -- to bizarre claims that Trump should be charged with crimes for touting this unproven therapy.

(A perfect illustration of the dementia: former FDA Head Scott Gottlieb -- who has been a Godsend for objective analysis during the pandemic -- tweeted out the results of the RECOVERY unblinding yesterday morning and noted that it showed no increased safety risk. He was immediately dogpiled by one side insisting he was trying to conceal the miracle cure of HCQ and the other insisting he is a Trumpist doing the Orange Man's dirty work.)

In the end, the lunatics do not matter. Whether HCQ works or not, whether it is used or not, will be mostly determined by doctors and will mostly be based on the evidence we have in front of us. If HCQ fails -- and it's not looking good -- my only response will be massive disappointment. Had HCQ worked, it would have been a gift from the heavens. It is a well-known, well-studied drug that can be manufactured cheaply in bulk. Had it worked, we could have saved thousands of lives, prevented hundreds of thousands of long-term injuries and saved trillions of dollars. That it doesn't appear to work -- certainly not miraculously -- is not entirely unexpected but is also a tragedy.

{C1} The Christian Science Monitor looks at 1918 and how sports handled that pandemic, and the role it played in giving rise to college football.

"That's really what started the big boom of college football in the 1920s," said Jeremy Swick, historian at the College Football Hall of Fame. "People were ready. They were back from war. They wanted to play football again. There weren't as many restrictions about going out. You could enroll back in school pretty easily. You see a great level of talent come back into the atmosphere. There's new money. It started to get to the roar of the Roaring '20s and that's when you see the stadiums arm race. Who can build the biggest and baddest stadium?"

{C2} During times of rapid change, social science is supposed to be able to help lead the way or at least decipher what is going on. Or maybe not...

But while Willer, Van Bavel, and their colleagues were putting together their paper, another team of researchers put together their own, entirely opposite, call to arms: a plea, in the face of an avalanche of behavioral science research on COVID-19, for psychology researchers to have some humility. This paper—currently published online in draft format and seeding avid debates on social media—argues that much of psychological research is nowhere near the point of being ready to help in a crisis. Instead, it sketches out an “evidence readiness” framework to help people determine when the field will be.

{C3} There is a related story about AI - which is predisposed towards tracking slow change over time - is having trouble keeping up.

{C4} The Covid-19 does not bode well for higher education is not news. They may have a lot of difficulty opening up (and maybe shouldn't). An added wrinkle is kids taking a gap year, which is potentially a problem because those most able to pay may be least likely to attend.

{C5} People who can see the faults with abstinence only education fail to see how that logic (We shouldn't give guidance to people doing things we would rather they not do in the first place). Emily Oster argues that the extreme message of public health advocates to Just Stay Home is counterproductive.

When people are advised that one very difficult behavior is safe, and (implicitly or not) that everything else is risky, they may crack under the pressure, or throw up their hands. That is, if people think all activities (other than staying home) are equally risky, they figure they might as well do those that are more fun. If taking a walk at a six-foot distance from a friend puts me at very high risk, why not just have that friend and a bunch of others over for a barbecue? It’s more fun. This is an exaggeration, of course, but different activities carry very different risks, and conscientious civic leaders should actively help people choose among them.

{C6} A look at what canceling the football season will do to the little guys - non-power schools. Ironically, they may sustain less damage due to fewer financial obligations relying on the money that won't be coming in. Be that as it may, Fordham has disestablished its baseball program.

{C7} Bans on evictions and rental spikes could have the main effect of simply pushing out small investors, rather than protecting renters. In a more good-faith economy this would be less of an issue because landlords would work with tenants. Which some are, though I don't have too much faith about it being widespread.

{C8} Three cheers for Nick Saban. Football coaches are cultural leaders of a sort. One is about to become a senator in Alabama, even. What they do matters.

The American college experience for better or for worse revolves around the residency factor. We have turned college into a relatively safe place for young adults to the test the limits of freedom without suffering too many consequences. Better to miss a day of classes because you drank too much than to miss a day of an apprenticeship or job and get fired. College was cut short this semester because of COVID and colleges are freaking out about whether they can open up dorms in the fall. The dorms are big money makers and it is hard to justify huge tuition bucks for zoom lectures even for elite universities. Maybe especially for them. California State University announced that Fall 2020 is going to be largely online. My undergrad alma mater sent out an e-mail blast announcing their plan to reopen in the fall with "mostly" in person classes. The President admitted that the plan was a work in progress but it strikes me as a combination of common sense and extreme wishful thinking. The plan may include:

1. Staggered drop-off days to limit density as we return.

This sounds reasonable but only in a temporary way because eventually everyone will be back on campus, living in dorm rooms together, needing to use communal bathrooms and showers.

2. Students would be tested for COVID-19 on campus at least twice in the first 14 days.

There is nothing wrong with this as long as the testing is available. Our capacity for testing so far in this country has not been great.

3. Anyone experiencing symptoms would be tested immediately. Students who test positive would be cared for in a separate dormitory area where food would be brought to the room and where the student could still access classes remotely.

Nothing wrong here. Outbreaks of certain diseases are not unknown in the college setting. During my senior year, there was an outbreak of a rather nasty strain of gastroenteritis. Other universities have experienced meningitis outbreaks.

4. All students would take their temperature and report symptoms daily.

This one is also reasonable but is going to involve spying on students and coming up with a punishment mechanism. How will they make sure students are not lying?

5. We would also require that socializing be kept to a minimum in the beginning, with proper PPE (masks) and social distancing. As time went on, we would seek to open up more, and students could socialize and eat together in small groups.

I have no idea how they tend for this to happen and it sets of all my lawyer bells for carefully crafted language that attempts to answer a concern or question but also admits "we got nothing." Maybe today's students are more somber and sincere but you are going to have around 500 eighteen year olds who are away from their parents for the first time and another 1500 nineteen to twenty-one year olds who had their semester rudely interrupted and might now be reunited with boyfriends and girlfriends. Are they going to assign eating times for the dining hall and put up solo eating cubicles that get wiped down and disinfected after each use? Assign times to use laundry facilities in each dorm? Cancel the clubs? Cancel performances by the theatre, dance, and music departments?

I am sympathetic to my alma I love it but and realize that a lot of colleges and universities would take a real hit financially without residency. This includes universities with reasonable to very large endowments. Only the ones with hedge fund size endowments would not suffer but the last part of the plain sounds not fully thought out yet even if my college's current President admitted: "Life on campus will not look the same as it did pre-pandemic" The only way i see number 5 working is if requiring is read as "requiring."

Seems that the theory that Covid-19 can be spread by asymptomatic people has very shaky evidence in support of it. Turns out the case this assumption was made from was based on a single woman who infected 4 others. Researchers talked to the 4 patients, and they all said the patient 0 did not appear ill, but they could not speak to patient 0 at the time.

So they finally got to talk to her, and she said she was feeling ill, but powered through with the aid of modern pharmaceuticals.

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Today we couldn’t be happier to announce that Vox Media and New York Media are merging to create the leading independent modern media company. Our combined business will be called Vox Media and will serve hundreds of millions of audience members wherever they prefer to enjoy our work.

In a nation in turmoil, it's nice to have even a small bit of good news:

Representative Steve King of Iowa, the nine-term Republican with a history of racist comments who only recently became a party pariah, lost his bid for renomination early Wednesday, one of the biggest defeats of the 2020 primary season in any state.

In a five-way primary, Mr. King was defeated by Randy Feenstra, a state senator, who had the backing of mainstream state and national Republicans who found Mr. King an embarrassment and, crucially, a threat to a safe Republican seat if he were on the ballot in November.

The defeat was most likely the final political blow to one of the nation’s most divisive elected officials, whose insults of undocumented immigrants foretold the messaging of President Trump, and whose flirtations with extremism led him far from rural Iowa, to meetings with anti-Muslim crusaders in Europe and an endorsement of a Toronto mayoral candidate with neo-Nazi ties.

King, you may remember, was stripped of his committee assignments last year when he defended white supremacism. Two years ago, he almost lost his Congressional seat in the general. That is, a seat that Republicans have held since 1986, usually win by double digits and a district Trump carried by a whopping 27 points almost came within a point or two of voting in a Democrat. That's how repulsive King had gotten.

Good riddance to bad rubbish. Enjoy retirement, Congressman. Oops. Sorry. In January, it will be former Congressman.

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From the Daily Mail: Deadliest city in America plans to disband its entire police force and fire 270 cops to deal with budget crunch

The deadliest city in America is disbanding its entire police force and firing 270 cops in an effort to deal with a massive budget crunch.

...

The police union says the force, which will not be unionized, is simply a union-busting move that is meant to get out of contracts with current employees. Any city officers that are hired to the county force will lose the benefits they had on the unionized force.

Oak Park police say they are investigating “suspicious circumstances” after two attorneys — including one who served as a hearing officer in several high-profile Chicago police misconduct cases — were found dead in their home in the western suburb Monday night.

Officers were called about 7:30 p.m. for a well-being check inside a home in the 500 block of Fair Oaks Avenue, near Chicago Avenue, and found the couple dead inside, Oak Park spokesman David Powers said in an emailed statement. Authorities later identified them as Thomas E. Johnson, 69, and Leslie Ann Jones, 67, husband and wife attorneys who worked in Chicago.

The preliminary report from an independent autopsy ordered by George Floyd's family says the 46 year old man's death was "caused by asphyxia due to neck and back compression that led to a lack of blood flow to the brain".

The independent examiners found that weight on the back, handcuffs and positioning were contributory factors because they impaired the ability of Floyd's diaphragm to function, according to the report.

Dr. Michael Baden and the University of Michigan Medical School's director of autopsy and forensic services, Dr. Allecia Wilson, handled the examination, according to family attorney Ben Crump.

Baden, who was New York's medical examiner in 1978 and 1979, had previously performed independent autopsies on Eric Garner, who was killed by a police officer in Staten Island, New York, in 2014 and Michael Brown, who was shot by officers in Ferguson, Missouri, that same year.

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Oddly, the video was dropped by an attorney friend the men, because he thought it would exonerate them. He assumed when people saw Aubrey turn and try to defend himself, everyone would see what they did: a dangerous animal needing to be put down.